Hurricane Florence Coverage

Just to be the optimist (even in this event and situation) from where he’s standing there could have been stronger gusts of wind especially if he’s between buildings (which is where most trucks are parked to protect them and the dish) while there less strong in the open street. These things are like that. In past events my neighbors across the street (maybe 50’) have experienced strong winds as evident by their trees and lost shutters, gutters and roofing tile while our house there’s barely breeze.


Also, Craig Melvin’s team had quite a setup. I assume they were in someone’s covered deck complete with teleprompter and return vision. He was probably far away from which the prompter and return video would be useful but still impressive. I assume it may be equipment they want to get replaced but write it off for insurance reasons as a loss.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BntEiMzji1O/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=1sbguevcu8i0k

There also was Nightly News coming from a dock, where a prompter would probably be useless:

Talk about intrepid reporting ... @LesterHoltNBC anchors entire '#NBCNightlyNews' from floating ramp in rain and wind #HurricaneFlorence pic.twitter.com/M3XX2DmEos

— NewscastStudio (@newscaststudio) September 14, 2018

Also worth noting with the weather channel walking clip it’s a lot harder to stand still than to walk.

Lester Holt anchored an entire NN from a helicopter before. Man of action.

https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news-netcast/video/nightly-news-full-broadcast-may-13-445151811551

Also, Weather Channel crews are using mobile bonding I think, they go for drive arounds and send live video, they walk around an entire town or huge area - pretty cool. I saw a few behind the scenes articles once but I can't find them anymore.

I'm a tech nerd rather than a presentation nerd

They do have several live and drive cars. The networks do as well each outfitted with two or three LiveU/Dejero/TVUs of their choice, some offering bonded Internet others are used for the video transmission. It’s a take on the mobile weather labs most stations have (which also have the live and drive capability).

For certain applications like when the Weather Channel would be in the middle of nowhere storm chasing and cellular was spotty they had a caravan of cars and the Bloommobile (created for use during the invasion of Iraq) a mile or two behind. But even the Bloommobiles radome got destroyed. NBC still uses the Bloommobile during snow coverage sometimes with another car or by itself. During a Red Nose Day Special with Matt Lauer biking from Boston to NYC they used it to transmit pictures. Of course now that the Weather Channel isn’t owned by NBC anymore means they don'to have it.



Look at the antennas above the cab here used to connect other cars:

http://media2.s-nbcnews.com/i/MSNBC/Components/Video/150127/tdy_bloommobile_150127.jpg

https://www.today.com/video/today/56876215
https://www.today.com/video/today/56876217

Man that’s insane. Steerable sat-tracking dish in the radome?

Are we supposed to be impressed. Idiot is the phrase that springs to mind with most these reporters putting themselves in these situations - that earlier clip above sums it up. It's not about informing viewers, it's purely about self servicing their networks.

Yup, auto tracking and all.

Off your high horse, man.
It's about relaying a story. News is storytelling.

The UK reporters from BBC World News were doing the same thing, regular hits from the beach. The international reporters may not be anchoring a show from the beach but they’re less than a block and routinely putting themselves in danger. Chances are if this was in the UK there’d be reporters in the same situation.

This isn’t the first rodeo that US reporters have gone through and not the rest. They go through training for these types of severe weather, hostage, kidnapping, and fire weather reporting. They aren’t putting some John Q. Public with no training.

Additionally the companies respective HR and risk management departments wouldn’t allow this with out training. As far as I know no reporter has been killed while actively reporting during a hurricane. In the past there have been deaths of amateur tornado chasers but no professionals.

The reporters are also constantly monitoring local conditions, know when to stop reporting and they can call off a shot if it’s not safe.

This happens pretty much everywhere in the world. When the intense Bora winds strike Slovenia, all the stations send their reporters out on the field:

Brekkie didn't say it was purely a U.S. issue.

Reporting is different from anchoring though, I'd say. This is why I was impressed with Steph Abrams on TWC on Friday.